I just finished reading a collection of Samuel R. Delany’s short stories and novellas from the mid- to late-’60s, Driftglass (link is to the copy I bought at BookMarx, with the ultra-cheesy fishman cover), and man, I always forget just how good his best work is. Here’s a rundown of what’s in this collection. “The Star-Pit”: The first story is by far the best–worth the price of admission for this alone. It’s startlingly contemporary. It’s a story about working-class men... Read more
Uh, putting a whole chocolate bar in your ice-cream soda is a bad idea, don’t do that. Libresco noted that she’d always just eaten ice cream + soda (as indicated by the name of the drink) and I tried that and it was great! I grew up on ice-cream sodas made by this amazing Jamaican ice cream parlor near home, where they would replace the chocolate syrup with hot fudge if you asked, and their ice-cream sodas always had this... Read more
So I tried to make an ice-cream soda today. I made… something! First attempt: Maybe two scoops of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Therapy ice cream (I KNOW, you don’t have to say anything) went into a big glass. Then I melted a Lindt chili chocolate bar in the microwave and poured that in. Then started to fill the glass with club soda but realized that the melted chocolate bar would make things fairly warm, so I added some ice cubes,... Read more
…The New Testament suggests that there is nothing more paschal in character, nothing more closely aligned with the great transitus of Jesus’ death and resurrection, than the transitional moment represented by our repentance and God’s forgiveness, which brings new life out of the death we’ve constructed for ourselves. Rowan Williams noted in his book Resurrection that the disciples’ experience of resurrection was inextricably linked to their own desertion of him and their failure as his friends. When they encountered the... Read more
profile mostly of Wesley Hill, w/some commentary from others: Wesley Hill is convinced that taking a road less traveled doesn’t have to be a lonely journey. Mr. Hill, a professor at Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, and a small corps of other writers around the country have churned out a small library of books and blog posts, united in a single premise. They believe gay Christians can and should affirm their sexual orientation — but should also commit to celibacy.... Read more
Washington Post again… The stories pile on. A white security officer tells of the year he and his black wife lived in an apartment complex. “She got cops called a total of 9 times in the year we lived there I got zero,” he says. A retired cop recalls the time a “lady called scared to death because some black guy was sitting in his truck across from her house” — it was the water meter reader. more Read more
ye podcaste, clique here (I would tell you more but I don’t remember what I said) Read more
from the Washington Post: Not long ago, the Hispanic residents of this gang-ridden neighborhood in Southwest Fresno would not have voluntarily spoken to a police officer, much less attended a police-sponsored block party and taken photos with the chief. But over the past decade, a sustained policing initiative marked by community meetings, Christmas gifts and dozens of neighborhood events has fundamentally altered police-resident relations. more (there are serious limits to attempts to “reform the ethos of policing”–it’s still policing by... Read more
I don’t want to be tokenistic but I’m betting the best way to get you to read this terrific article is to show you these paragraphs: In the meantime both men underwent a private transformation. Thompson had abandoned Catholicism at Harvard, though he had never entirely renounced the faith. In 1952 he told his lover (who had been raised an Anglican) that he wanted to practice the Catholic faith again. Trower was initially taken by surprise, but six months later... Read more
for AmCon: Most of the art and literature of friendship is elegiac. From Montaigne to Marsden Hartley, from St. Aelred to Andrew Sullivan, from elegant tribute to anguished lament, our art of friendship is haunted by the death of friends. … Part of what makes my friend Wesley Hill’s slender new book so intriguing is that it is an attempt to give an account of friendship that is grounded in history, theology, and literature—yet forward-looking. Spiritual Friendship: Finding Love in... Read more
Eve Tushnet
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